Civ2civ3 default unlimited units free of upkeep exploit
Both of the proposed solutions have their downsides. Third alternative would be to disallow homeless units from bribing (ruleset level change; adjusment to the action enabler), but I'm not sure if that was already possible in freeciv-3.0, or only in later (development) branches.
Reply To cazfi
Both of the proposed solutions have their downsides. Third alternative would be to disallow homeless units from bribing (ruleset level change; adjusment to the action enabler), but I'm not sure if that was already possible in freeciv-3.0, or only in later (development) branches.
A 4th possible alternative is to sharply increase the cost of bribing for units that would become homeless(ie: double the cost compared to a spy/diplomat that has a home city) so that it may not feel worthwhile to pursue the exploit.
Also, despite the fact this exploit exists, its not exactly easy to do. For example, a full health green barbarian/pirate legion costs over 500 gold to bribe at the beginning of the game (though a barbarian horsemen only costs around 75 gold).
Reply To cazfi
Third alternative would be to disallow homeless units from bribing (ruleset level change; adjustment to the action enabler), but I'm not sure if that was already possible in freeciv-3.0, or only in later (development) branches.
It's works in 3.0, and as a ruleset level change (not affecting rulesets that don't want, for whatever reason, the hardcoded behavior we would choose from the alternatives presented) I much prefer this.
Unfortunately 3.0 disallows giving homeless unit ability to become homed, so can't give player the possibility to home their starting diplomat for gaining bribing ability to it. Works in master - 3.1 currently unknown.
Reply To cazfi
giving homeless unit ability to become homed, so can't give player the possibility to home their starting diplomat for gaining bribing ability to it.
Master / S3_1 patch does that.
Good catch, thank you for the patch.
It looks like something that could be ported to all rulesets, even if they do not currently have diplomats as starting units.
After playing a few games in 3.0 civ2civ3, not sure if this may or may not be worth patching
1. Unlimited free units of upkeep and no unhappiness: The player starting units are CSWX (settlers, diplomat, worker and Explorer). Since starter units never have a home city, If the player exclusively uses their staring diplomat to bribe enemy units, those units are also free of a home city and are free of unit upkeep and cause no unhappiness. If the diplomat bribes enemy diplomats, those diplomats also become independent of a home city and it graduallyl a chain reaction. With sufficient gold income (very easy under a fundamental regime), the player can sustain a far larger army than the game would normally allow (a democracy which promotes high trade values becomes far more threatening than a communist or federation). Either remove the diplomat from the starting units or have bribe enemy unit assign the newly bribed unit to the closest city to where the unit was bribed regardless of the diplomat's home city.
Over the course of the game I went nuts with this, I had 3x as many military units compared to what I had produced using the diplomat bribe action.